In recent years, the availability of Earth observation data from satellites has increased dramatically, allowing for systematic and global monitoring of Earth's surface processes at an unprecedented scale.
For several decades now, the invasive ascomycete fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus has caused a serious, steady population decline of common ash (Fraxinus excelsior) across Europe. This decline in ash populations in Sweden caused the species to become Red-listed in 2010, and since 2015 its status has only worsened to become critically endangered.
Europe’s forests are under increasing pressure from climate extremes, requiring better monitoring of changing forest dynamics.
The upcoming *DACH Permafrost Conference* will take place at SLF Davos. This annual meeting provides an important platform to promote direct exchange between scientists working in polar and mountain permafrost regions with the aim of exploiting synergies and jointly developing methodological approaches.
Die Tabletop-Übung «Drought» verfolgt das Ziel, die Tauglichkeit des Schweizer Bevölkerungsschutzes zur Bewältigung von mehrjährigen Trockenheitsereignissen zu überprüfen. Dabei werden Mitglieder der Bevölkerungsschutz-Partnerorganisationen hypothetischen, aber realistischen extremen Dürreszenarien ausgesetzt, die vom WSL-Programm Extremes und dem Center for Security Studies der ETH Zürich entwickelt wurden. Dies ermöglicht die Überprüfung der aktuellen Strukturen, Prozesse und Ressourcen im Hinblick auf zukünftige Extremereignisse. Die Teilnahme ist nur auf Einladung möglich.
The workshop will bring together scientists and practitioners working in urban ecology and management.
Die zahlreichen und schnellen Veränderungen, die wir in Umwelt und Gesellschaft wahrnehmen, führen zu Veränderungen in Risiken. Welche Risiken sind das und wie hängen sie zusammen? Wo stehen wir im Umgang damit und wo besteht Forschungs- und Handlungsbedarf? Im WSL-Forum 2024 wollen wir quer durch die Themenlandschaft der WSL gegenwärtige Herausforderungen und mögliche Lösungsansätze beleuchten und diskutieren.
The Gran Paradiso National Park, the Swiss National Park and the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) are pleased to invite you to the 25th Meeting of the Alpine Ibex European Specialists Group - Gruppo Stambecco Europa (GSE- AIESG) that will be held in Zernez (Engadin, Switzerland) on 23rd-25th October 2024.
A 4RI networking and collaboration event about Aerosol & Health
Old-growth forests, ancient forests and forest reserves are attractive and rewarding outdoor laboratories to study diverse topics in forest ecology. This summer school offers scientific training for Master and PhD students interested in old-growth forests. It is organized by the Swiss-Ukrainian research cooperation for primeval forest structures and biodiversity. The goal is to bring together a group of individuals which are motivated to learn from specialists in forest ecology, remote sensing, animal ecology, biodiversity and data management, and to contribute to an inspiring atmospher
Daniel Wegmann (UniFr) and his team work on developing analysis tools for biodiversity monitoring that are robust to variation in the sampling process. In this seminar, he will present three tools to infer population trends from noisy count data, to infer species distributions from camera trapping data, and to use AI to speed up the labeling process of biodiversity records.
Am Infotag werden die Ergebnisse der geminsamen Forschungsinitiative von Eawag und WSL zum Thema "Blue Green Biodiversity" vorgestellt.
Wir werden am 28. August 2024 an der WSL Forschungsplattform im Naturpark Pfyn-Finges die neue Studie vorstellen und den Versuchsaufbau demonstrieren, der in dieser Grössenordnung weltweit einzigartig ist.
We have the pleasure to announce the 34th European Dendroecological Fieldweek, August 23-30. It will take place in the scenic mountain village of Bardonecchia, in the south-western Italian Alps . This year the EDF will be organised in close collaboration between the Dendrolabs of the WSL and the University of Torino, Italy. The Association for Tree-Ring Research ATR, will support the event with some travel grants.
Die ibW Maienfeld und die WSL bieten zwei Weiterbildungen zum
Thema Seilkranprojektierung an.
Im Einführungskurs Seilaplan und QGIS (23.8.2024) wird das
an der WSL entwickelte QGIS-Plugin Seilaplan vorgestellt. Mit
Seilaplan können Seillinien geplant und berechnet werden. Es
werden die wichtigsten theoretischen Grundlagen von Seilaplan,
der Umgang mit dem Tool sowie in einem kurzen Crashkurs die für
Seilaplan notwendigen QGIS-Kenntnisse vermittelt.
Das Programm OWARNA2@MCH wurde an der MeteoSchweiz gestartet, um eine Massnahme aus dem Massnahmenpaket OWARNA 2 , das der LAINAT (Lenkungsausschuss Intervention Naturgefahren) beim Bundesrat beantragt hat, umzusetzen. Ziel dieses Programmes ist, das Unwetterwarnsystem zu erneuern und weiter zu entwickeln
Uncertainty of spillover effects (including property devaluation) from proposed land-use change elicits opposition to local development and hinders cities to implement densification land-use policy. In this context, I review how existing 3D Computer-Aided-Design (3DCAD) is used to systematically generate and evaluate building-specific design performance and how this process can be co-opted to infer a design's location-based amenity value. Connecting 3DCAD-based evaluations of building-specific visual landscape quality with financial market data, I present an integrated approach to predict the property value at risk due to newly-proposed development. Finally, I illustrate how a global assessment of the at-risk building stock allows cities and developers alike to mitigate development-associated spillover effects.
Aquatische und terrestrische Lebensräume sind eng miteinander verknüpft. Zahlreiche Pflanzen und Tierarten nutzen während ihres Lebens beide Lebensräume; zwischen «Wasser» und «Land» herrscht ein reger Austausch von Stoffen und Organismen. Auch die menschliche Nutzung und Gestaltung der Landschaft wird vom Wechselspiel zwischen aquatischen und terrestrischen Lebensräumen geprägt. Das vorliegende Buch lädt dazu ein, auf acht Exkursionen die Funktionsweise dieser Lebensräume und ihre Biodiversität aktiv zu erkunden.
The fragile landscape of hilly regions of India is susceptible to several disasters like earthquakes, landslides, snow avalanche and flash floods. Landslide disaster is one of the major recurrent concerns in Himalayan terrain. The highly sensitive hilly regions have also been subjected to enormous amount of pressure, primarily due to the escalating population thereby leading to overexploitation of natural resources. Thus, the amalgamation of ecological disruption either due to natural or anthropogenic activities is making the hill slopes fragile and thus the infrastructures unsafe. Such disasters pose risk to lives and all sorts of vital infrastructures such as human settlements, roads, rails, tunnels, hydro-power projects etc. The most recent example is the Joshimath landslidesubsidence incident which aggravated in the month of January 2023 affecting thousands of human settlements.
Vierter und letzter Infoanlass zur Feldkampagne Revision der Roten Liste der Pilze der Schweiz.
“Nature” has diverse meanings, each with its referents. Those working in environmental psychology and allied fields favor some of those meanings, using them and attending to their referents in particular ways. Other meanings see less use, despite their relevance, and their referents receive relatively little attention. I will consider some meanings of “nature” and some problems that their use or neglect has had for environment-behavior-design research. Those problems involve forms of insensitivity or blindness – to some ubiquitous and behaviorally influential natural phenomena, to historical and cultural contingencies of restorative benefits of nature experience, and to limitations of evolutionary assumptions commonly invoked in discussions of such benefits. Awareness of these problems will support further development in theory and methods useful for the study of human-nature relations.
As in all the mountains of the world, the snow, glaciers and permafrost of the European Alps are undergoing major changes in relation to the current global change. After presenting a picture of this evolution of the cryosphere, which has been accelerating since the 1990s, all the more so as the mountains are more affected by the global warming, we will show its effects on geomorphic processes such as rock fall, rock and ice avalanches, debris flows, moraine failure, or lake dynamics.
Für Forschende, die Versicherungs- und Rückversicherungsindustrie sowie für die Bundesverwaltung ist das Thema der Extremereignisse von zentralem Interesse. Dies betrifft die Vorhersage, Vorsorge und Warnung, aber auch die Anpassung und Risikominderung. Dieser vom WSL-Programm Extremes, SCOR und von der Schweizer Hagel organisierte Workshop stimulierte den Dialog zu Themen, wo es Lösungen und Fortschritte braucht, die man gemeinsam anpacken muss (z.B. Standardisierungsbedarf, Dürre-Informationstools, Schnittstelle zum Zivilschutz).
Soils are not only the basis for the production of food and other raw materials, they also store and filter water, store carbon and harbour an overwhelming biodiversity. This multifunctionality emerges from complex interactions of small scale biological, physical and chemical processes. In this presentation we discuss how such processes can be represented in a systemic soil model that allows to predict the impact of soil management and climate change on soil functions and their dynamics at the scale of landscapes.
Iva Franić (WSL) will present her work on tree seed fungi, focusing on their diversity and how they can enhance seedling vigor and resilience or threaten plant vitality.
Die Fotografien von Sam V. Furrer erkunden die zarten Details des Holzes, die Spuren seiner Bewohner sowie das Spiel von Licht und Schatten im Innern des morschen Baumstamms. Die Erläuterungen von Forschenden der WSL geben einen Einblick in eine vielfältige Welt.
The best avalanche forecasts are worth little if users are unable to understand and apply the provided information in their risk management practices. While it is well established in the risk communication community that an in-depth understanding of the needs and skills of the target audience is critical for effective communication, avalanche safety research has traditionally focused mainly on improving the accuracy of avalanche forecasts and did not pay much attention to how the information is interpreted and applied
François Munoz (Université Grenoble Alpes) will introduce a new type of eco-evolutionary modelling, based on a coalescence approach, to evaluate and test different biogeographical and evolutionary scenarios.
Leben und Forschen in der Antarktis. Matthias Jaggi erzählt von seinem Forschungsaufenthalt auf der französisch-italienischen Forschungsstation Concordia auf dem antarktischen Hochplateau.
Climate change threatens cities particularly through increasing frequency and intensity of heat waves, rainstorms and droughts. Green infrastructure is increasingly seen as a key measure for urban climate change adaptation. What potential does it really have and how should it be designed? How can the conflict between densification in growing cities and the development of green infrastructure be resolved? The lecture will present results from research projects at the Centre for Urban Ecology and Climate Adaptation at the Technical University of Munich.
A joint seminar co-organized with the WSL Landscape Center
Nadine Schütz is a media-artist and master student in Curatorial Studies (Art Education) at Zurich University of the Arts. As part of the transdisciplinary Master Series residencies, she accompanied and exchanged with mycologist Artemis Treindl in her field research. Her talk is the end-presentation of this 3-month long exchange.
Debbie Leigh (WSL) will present the results of a common garden experiment to characterize standing local adaptation and trait genomic architecture.
Antrittsvorlesung von Janine Bolliger an der Universität Zürich
Increasingly sophisticated algorithms have already become part of our lives. This development is also starting to extend to avalanche forecasting. It is starting to impact our work as forecasters and will eventually also influence our forecast products.
The operational model chain at SLF now encompasses the physical snow-cover model SNOWPACK but also recently developed machine-learning models. These models deliver predictions on various aspects relevant to regional avalanche forecasting, such as the likelihood of dry-snow or wet-snow avalanches in a region, snowpack instability, and the danger level. Taking the perspective of the avalanche forecaster, I will share examples to underscore the potential advantages and challenges associated with utilizing these models in operational avalanche forecasting at SLF.
Seismometers record signals from more than just earthquakes. Ground vibrations due to natural processes were recognized more than a century ago by scientists designing the instrumentation for earthquake detection, who mostly interpreted those signals as something polluting the seismograms, and therefore to be discarded. However, what happens if we neglect earthquakes and analyse what remains in the records?
New Zealand’s climate and topography create conditions for challenging avalanche problems. For example, large wet avalanches will sometimes generate powder clouds, and storms will bring > 500 mm of rain to an alpine snowpack the middle of winter. Relatively sparse observational records hamper efforts to characterize avalanche hazards in many places. Our work aims to better understand avalanches in New Zealand using remote sensing observations and modelling.
Recent unprecedented heat and heavy rainfall extremes broke previous observed record intensities by large margins. Given their unprecedented intensity some media outlets and scientists raised the question whether extremes intensify faster than projected. Here I address this question and highlight some of the challenges such events pose to widely used methods in model evaluation and attribution. Furthermore, I discuss ways forward in quantifying the potential intensity of future record-shattering events.
Davnah Urbach will introduce the Global Mountain Biodiversity Assessment research network before building on the work it performs to give an overview (i) of the current state of knowledge and research on mountain biodiversity in the face of global change and (ii) of current efforts and options to support science-based policy making for mountain biodiversity.
Glacier mass change has crucial impacts on hydrology, sea level rise, and climate change. Geodetic and glaciological mass balance observations so far have insufficient resolution to capture processes occurring on small spatial and/or short temporal scales. However, a permanent Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) station adjacent to Hintereisferner (HEF, Ötztal Alps, Austria) provides daily Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), which allow closing spatiotemporal gaps in established glacier monitoring methods. An uncertainty assessment showed that smaller-scale processes, such as snow deposition and redistribution with a vertical spatial scale >0.10 m can be investigated with the TLS setup at HEF
Forschung und Verwaltung kommunizieren über verschiedenste Themen: Forschungsresultate, Politik, fachliche Wissensvermittlung und Sensibilisierung und vieles mehr. Damit die unterschiedlichen Kommunikationsbedürfnisse erfüllt werden könnten, braucht es eine gute Abstimmung und Umsetzung. Wissenschaftliche Findings müssen beispielsweise «übersetzt» werden, damit sie für das Zielpublikum wie Medien, Bevölkerung und Politik verständlich sind und einheitlich darüber kommuniziert wird - eine Auslegeordnung aus Sicht des Bundes.
The Living Well Within Limits project investigated the energy requirements of well-being, from quantitative, provisioning systems and political economy perspectives. In this presentation, I will communicate cross-cutting findings from the project, in the form of 10 stylized facts, and their implications, present and future. These stylised facts cover the current and future energy requirements of wellbeing, their unequal distribution, the crucial role played by provisioning systems and public services, the importance of political economy approaches and the necessity to consider transformations beyond capitalism. I will also briefly present upcoming research on post-growth economies. I thus argue for the active (as in activist) engagement of the research community.
This 22nd international course on "Wood Anatomy and Tree-Ring Ecology"
will be held in Hotel Morteratsch, Pontresina, Switzerland
The goals are to present an overview of eDNA tools that are ready for use and available to practitioners, and to write a white paper on best practices and recommendations for eDNA monitoring for use in Switzerland.
Module 6: Work on Your Own Project
